Airport Plan Sparks Hot Debate

Turbulence Over Pratt Airfield Plan

February 05, 1993|By MIKE SWIFT; Courant Staff Writer

Just 24 hours after it was revealed, the Weicker administration's interest in converting a corporate airfield in East Hartford into one of the state's busiest public airports already had spawned an opposition group.

RADAR -- for Residents Against Deadly Airport Relocation -- would fight the conversion of United Technologies Corp.'s Rentschler Field as vigorously as residents fought a proposed South Windsor nuclear waste dump, East Hartford Mayor Susan G. Kniep vowed Thursday.

Gov. Lowell P. Weicker Jr.'s proposal to have the state buy Rentschler to replace Hartford's smaller Brainard Field would not only aid UTC, it would free up about 200 acres for "a major economic development activity" in Hartford, the administration said in a briefing document issued Wednesday before Weicker's budget address.

But the idea of converting Rentschler to accommodate the roughly 125,000 takeoffs or landings a year that Brainard has served in recent years sent ripples of reaction across the region Thursday.

In East Hartford and Wethersfield, residents, business owners and officials worried about airport noise. In Hartford, some officials were cheered by the possibility of significant future economic development on Brainard's 225 acres in the South Meadows. But downtown businesses worried that South Meadows redevelopment could affect their livelihood by drawing people away from downtown.

Development on the state-owned Brainard land "could run the whole range of options, from an industrial park to office, commercial, retail, to some kind of a large sports entertainment complex," said Joseph Cohen, a spokesman for the state Department of Economic Development.

Closing Brainard would boost hopes at the University of Connecticut that an indoor-outdoor stadium complex in the city's South Meadows could be built -- a complex that would host Big East football games, outdoor concerts and, perhaps, even the Hartford

Whalers.

Lewis B. Rome, chairman of UConn's board of trustees, said Thursday that he appointed a task force this week to investigate whether a sports complex might be feasible in Hartford.

"This obviously is of major interest to us," Rome said Thursday of the possible airport conversion.

If it chooses to elevate its football program from Division I-AA to Division I-A, UConn has an invitation to join the Big East football conference, with national powers such as the University of Miami.

Some downtown business owners, however, see the development of a South Meadows sports complex as a dire economic threat, if it means the Hartford Civic Center coliseum will be made obsolete.

Whalers owner Richard Gordon said Thursday that he has no intention of moving the Whalers out of the Civic Center. "I don't want to be in another arena, you understand? It's as simple as that," said Gordon, who has bee unhappy with the city over the terms of his Civic Center lease.

At a meeting Thursday morning, downtown restaurateur Michael Seaver said the prospect of losing the Whalers or the Civic Center coliseum has him so worried that he may not renew the lease of his Margaritaville restaurant in the Civic Center at the end of this year. Seaver is president of Business for Downtown Hartford, an association of small downtown businesses.

Seaver said he and other downtown merchants would love to see an outdoor stadium. Just don't put an indoor hockey-basketball arena next to it that could suck the Whalers, UConn basketball or the Boston Celtics out of the Civic Center, he said.

"It would suck Hartford up like a raisin," Seaver said. "Downtown Hartford as we know it just would not exist."

Weicker administration and UTC officials continued Thursday to describe the talks over Rentschler as preliminary, but a number of legislators have knowledge of them. When House Speaker Thomas D. Ritter was asked about the Rentschler talks at the Business for Downtown Hartford meeting where Seaver spoke Thursday morning, Ritter said UTC has "a very strict timetable" for completing a deal with the state.

UTC wants the deal concluded by April, said Ritter, a Hartford Democrat and strong proponent of a sports complex in Hartford.

"We believe [the South Meadows] is the next great area for development" in Hartford, Ritter told the downtown merchants.

Ritter said Thursday that he would like to see an outdoor stadium in Hartford that could host UConn football, minor league baseball and, "if lightning strikes," an NFL football franchise. He said he hopes to meet with Weicker soon to organize the efforts of the various groups interested in a stadium in Hartford.

Since 1982, Hartford officials have been arguing that Brainard should be closed and the land used for economic development. But studies commissioned by the state found that Brainard should remain an airport.

State transportation officials said Thursday that converting Rentschler into a public airport would augment the state's air transportation network. Rentschler's main runway is nearly 3,000 feet longer than Brainard's main runway, and the East Hartford airport can accommodate larger passenger jets.

Courant staff writers Cindy Murphy, Kenneth R. Gosselin and Robert Weisman contributed to this story -